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@45- the “lines” of what determines a school boundary are becoming more blurry. Some districts seem to have little to no boundaries (SRV-MV, AV-FHS, Lamorinda families essentially may “choose” their school while, for example, Cal and DoVal have less wiggle room.) The era of athletic transferring will perpetuate with the new CIF/NCS sit out rules becoming more lax. If that’s the law of the land, I have no problem with it. Most families don’t look for the “best athletic match,” however, and their athletes work hard to stay and compete at their boundary school with their established circle of friends and teammates. Nonetheless, there will always be coaches who will continue to test even the loosening of newer statutes- not only intra-district but out of section transfers- much to the chagrin of the admins and rooted families. One need look no further than the Grizz’ baseball forfeit (after an on field W) this past Spring for game #2, their first intra-section contest, vs. NM.

The Ghost

The details around the departures at SRV were not made public. Rumors were that the three players were unhappy with the team leadership and are no longer a part of the team.

Gridlock

Each EBAL squad has racked 4 games so here’s my take from best to worst. I’m a part-time assistant coach for one of the frosh teams in Livermore. I have seen every EBAL team on video and all of the teams in person for at least one-half of a game except DLS. Barring injuries to the top players, this is my predicted finish of our league.

*DLS: Even though the Spartans are freelance every EBAL team must play them of course. DLS will struggle against Cal, MV and Foothill for the first half but they should end up beating the top 3 teams by at least 21 points each.

1. Cal: The Grizzlies are good and better than the top of the league now. They run the ball well behind an aggressive O-line and Johnson is a good back but not incredible, I would like to see him run harder between the tackles given his size. They whacked Pittsburg but let them back in the game. They beat an underrated Castro Valley team that runs the ball exceptionally well and we scouted the first half of that game in CV’s impressive stadium. The biggest weakness for Cal is their passing game because it’s extremely vanilla and predictable by their alignments. Their QB is a better runner than passer and it might come back to haunt them if they need to play catch-up too often. Their defense is in need of stepping up to the plate better during the 2nd half of games, could conditioning be a factor?

2. Amador: The Dons are due to finish higher than expected and this year they will do it. QB Moreno is poised but the underrated part of Amador is their defense. Their victory against Freedom was not a fluke as some have hinted at, it was a hard fought effort with tons of nasty hitting. Holding Concord to 16 points on the road was impressive but their own offense faltered. Against Cal they were driving for the go ahead TD but coughed up the ball that went the other way for the Cal win. They have Foothill at home this year and Moreno will not lose his last home game of his senior year, guaranteed.

3. Monte Vista: We scouted them Friday night at Foothill. Bergman is a very good coach known for his offense. What separates the Mustangs this year is their defense. MV’s defense absolutely dominated Foothill’s offense for 3.5 quarters of the game, but it was MV’s special teams and crucial mistakes on offense over and over again inside Foothill’s red zone that cost MV the game. Bergman should have let Zamora throw to WR Mason Melin all night because Foothill had no answer but for some reason Bergman kept trying to run the ball inside the 10 yard line. Foothill should have been routed by at least 21 points but MV blew the game. I don’t think MV will falter like that again after such a painful giving away of the game. Look for them to rebound.

4. Foothill: Throw out the Falcons game against Novato. Is Foothill as good as advertised in the preseason? It’s hard to put stock into their road victory vs. Las Lomas because they’ve been beaten 3 times in five games. It’s not smart to bet against Sweeney and Foothill on a regular basis, but I can see Foothill dropping games to Cal & Amador unless their below average offense gets its act together after getting a gift from MV.

5. Livermore: Coach Haubner is doing a great job for the Cowboys and they had a chance to win against SRV Friday night. They hit some good plays vs. SRV but they should have thrown more on 1st down. They took some of the stuffing out of SRV and the Wolves will lose against Amador, Cal, Foothill and MV, in addition to DLS. Look for Livermore to get better each week and pull off one major upset this year. I like their intensity and focus across the board but they need a few more playmakers to step up in crunch time and they need to pass more on 1st down.

6. San Ramon Valley: Coach Kessler is a good coach but his team is in turmoil. Lots of infighting, backbiting and too many expectations have cost this team in addition to playing against a very tough preseason schedule. Their loss to Logan was a telling sign. Logan’s offense was below average that night but it was SRV’s QB that did not perform well at all. It’s clear to the coaches in the league that Birse is not anything close to the QB that Kline was last year. Birse is decent and he can’t move. SRV’s defense is very respectable but this team seems to be falling apart. After losing to Amador, Cal, Foothill & MV, their season will implode after too many disappointments. SRV did not look good Friday night, they looked iffy.

7. Granada: Coach Silva has never been in the upper echelon of east bay coaches but he is well respected and a very good man and a good coach. The Matadors have a win over a down Heritage team but the other wins are vs. weak teams. If Granada was to play SRV in Livermore this year then I would have switched Granada to 6th place and put SRV in the cellar, but the Mats go to Danville so they will lose that one to an angry SRV team that is fresh off losing this week to Amador.

Comments?

Hoodboy

Damn Outsider is just throwing the kids business out all on the Internet. That’s crazy to speak about where a 17 year old kid lived

Hoodboy

The alameda encinal game is probably gonna be close or one team could start strong and never slow down. These 2 teams are pretty even so anything could happen

@45&51 Accurate summary of the Foothil QB situation, good kid, good family looking to give him the best shot the kid is an athlete and should play next level. Also agree with the recruiting comments, former coach Tony S. was starting to change that prior to leaving for Gorman but Coach B. hasn’t learned how important that aspect has become and it’s costing him players. In regards to the 2010 squad a number of players had small school opportunities but didn’t get the support you see from other coaches (look at the all EBAL from 2010). The only question for Friday is will Cal’s D finally step up, the EBAL this year maybe more like 2009 where anybody can beat anybody.

Stewie

The Golden Eagles of Del Oro will take it to Logan.
Spartans just like in Groundhog Day..Its Déjà vu once again as the Cowboys from Livermore are ambushed by the men of Sparta.

FNL680

@53. Make no mistake about it, single sport HS athlete’s families that seek the next level are spending more and more money and exercising leverage to get a starters role by the Junior year. Too numerous examples (I prefer not to name under 18’s)to present here. It’s truth in privates and publics and it’ll only get more common (worse?) as the CIF/NCS transfer rules now are lax. A cautionary tale: you may end up with that D1 Scholly… with three other frosh at your position and #8 on the depth chart.

Coach Tony S. who left for Gorman has an outstanding program. He walked into an outstanding program. Coach B at Cal doing a good job but doesn’t and will never have the players or opportunities of a Gorman.
Gorman has been a high powered Catholic program for a long time with lots of college bound atheletes.

CaliFootballFan

@gridiron
You lost all credibility with your slanted take on the ebal. You Amador roots are showing. Its clear to everyone on here that you have no idea what you are talking about. Maybe you should stick to frosh.

@monarch86 – well said – will you be at Cal game?

@FNL680 – no shit….the transferring epidemic has been going on for a long time because of athletics, too many kids and not enought spots on teams and the NCS changes are only catching up with the times. The scholarschip quest is at fever pitch in all sports, even club teams, and academics as well. The reality for many is it’s just a ticket in with very few real scholarship dollars available. Many quit after the first year.

Cali football- you are right. Public transfers have always been there, now it’s easier than before. SoCal publics have numerous transfers, look at Mission Viejo and Long Beach Poly. Poly used to be called the southern california all-stars.
A word to the wise, if kids are good enough and want to compete on a div 2 or div 3 or naia level, there are opportunities. But beware, some of these programs are very tough and demanding and they play bigger schools a lot. They also carry large rosters sometimes.

Tri-City Dude

#47, Washington did get beat easily by those teams. However, in all fairness, American probably would have lost to those teams as well. The adavantage for Washington playing that tough schedule is that they are now battle-tested for league play. American has done well, but they had a pretty weak non-league schedule where their best win was against an average Arroyo team. Regardless, I think both teams are hungry to win.

Stewie

Amador roots are they blond? Oh sorry no blond jokes.
CV-C should be in that #11 spot by next week.

CaliFootballFan

@stewie – even silver and green roots are better than none, huh stewie?

There were some big changes, especially “move-ups” from Week 3. The 3 drops(Inderkum, Del Oro and Atwater), I think, were pretty clear. One could make an arguement for Atwater, though, because they played the Cougars extremely tough.
It’s hard to gauge the CS teams because they’re caught in “no man’s land between North and South (hopefully, CIF will move the Central Section into the North Region soon. Other high school sports media organizations have been advocating this for years). Most CS vs SS or LACS “quality” games have had the CS schools on the short end and there has only been 1 CS Cal Bowl team (and D3 at that) over the years.
Anyway, St. Marys, Freedom, and Foothill all made huge jumps. St.Marys routed highly touted Lincoln 51-18(This rivalry has “the curse of the Bambino” for Lincoln. The Trojans seem to always lose, even when they’re supposed to be better on paper! Reminds me of, down South, Servite and Mater Dei until a couple of years ago.). The Rams also played DeLa much tougher than anyone else the week before. I don’t think they’re the “same team” that lost to Central Catholic 21-28 Sept. 9. Also, Lincoln’s record (and offensive weapons) has to have the Trojans in the top 20 at this point.
Freedom’s very decisive 55-27 road win over a strong, on the roll, Castro Valley was very impressive. Also, the Falcons beat Foothill of Pleasanton (who beat Monte Vista, who clobbered Pitt, who squeeked by Granite Bay on the road, who very decisively beat Vacaville,etc,etc) 41-28 at Foothill August 31.
Because of an unimpressive 2-2 record, I left Freedom out of the Top 25 Week 3, but than the week 4 wins by teams Freedom was connected to changed everything.
Foothill beat Monte Vista 21-14. I saw the game. Both teams were very evenly matched, but the Falcons were better prepared. Kyle Kearns, who I think will be the next EBAL QB to get lots of recruiting stars by his name, is only a sophomore who, short of a serious injury, should only get much better as the season progresses. Like Freedom, Foothill’s 2-1 Week 3 record was not impressive, but everything changed Week 4 because of their win over MV and the Mustang game connections.
One would have needed to have driven about 335 miles down US 101, turned left on SR 150 for about 20 miles to the farmers’ and artists’ community of Ojai and seen fairly small(939 public school enrollment)Nordhoff take down the 1000 Oaks Lancers of the mighty Pac 5 Division 29-21 last Friday night.It was Franklin’s 38-28 win over TO, a heavily predicted Pac 5 playoff team (and the Lancers probably still will be; the Marmonte West, besides Oaks Christian, hasn’t shown to be that tough so far this year) Aug.24 at Del Oro HS was the win that appeared to put the Wildcats among the state’s elite and #2 in NorCal. The Nordhoff Rangers are one of the best CalBowl D3 teams in California and have to be the TriValley League and Northwest Division favorite at this point and should get a strong shot at the CalBowl D3 South Regionals if they keep it up.(However, Bishop Diego Garcia of Santa Barbara and in the same league, who’s on a strong 4-0 roll, will be very hard to get by Oct.26). However, a strong Pac 5 team should not lose to a CalBowl D3 team no matter how good D3 they are.
Franklin is no doubt an excellent team,(they beat Freedom on the road 31-21) but with the Nordhoff loss, the win over TO just doesn’t carry the same magnitude that it did Week 3. That’s why the Widcats are #4 Week 4.
(Speaking of the Southland, if you haven’t heard,Santa Margarita’s superstud QB, Johnny Stanton, got knocked out of the St. Bonnie game{35-27 SM} last Friday and is out for the season for ACL surgery. The Trinity and Pac 5 titles are now very much up for grab. Too bad because a Cal Bowl Open game between an undefeated DLS and undefeated Margarita would be the biggest California high school game ever! With all the horses
{an over 300 lb. average oline among other studs) wiley ‘ole Coach Harry Welsh has, an undefeated Spartan undefeated Eagle game is still not out of the question. Although I still have the Eagles ranked #1 in the state, I think Mater Dei will upset Margarita Oct. 12, however.)
One team that I may have under ranked is Palo Alto at #25. They played Mitty to a squeaker 27-28 at home Sept.7. However, other than the Chryst(excuse me if I mispelled it)kid at QB, I don’t think the Paly team is that talented. Also, the DeAnza league has not shown to be very tough so far this year. Most other rankings have the Vikings higher than I do.

Oh Boy

@Schoolmarm thanks for explainnig your rankings. They make more sense now. I think Pleasant Grove is ranked too high considering their recent loss to Inderkum who you just dropped. And I see VC-San Jose rising this week with a win over SI.

Outsider
Re: 45
Life for a head football, basketball, baseball, even softball coach in the S.R.V.U.S.D. is “unpredictable”.

Remember back in the 80’s when the SRV girls basketball coach took the Lady Wolves to the State Finals at Arco? The next year they won it! The third year the same coach was fired!

More recently, look what happened to Dave Kravitz at San Ramon. In the bleachers at SR games, I’d hear all the “geniuses” whining about his coaching. Apparently their “wisdom” got to somebody in the SRVUSD. Coach Kravitz was able to transfer to Cal Hi, and designed some pretty good offenses there.

I don’t think this atmosphere exists to that extent at Foothill and Amador. Definitely not at De La Salle/Corondelet.

Bay Area Section
Thankyou for reading my rankings and follow up comments.
As to Vacaville vs Deer Valley, it’s a hard one to call(for me anyway).
Don’t know too much about this year’s Wolverines except what I’ve read here. I understand they have some speed and size. Know very little about their coach,Rich Woods.
Saw Vacaville vs Marin Catholic on On Demand TV, where I could run back plays. I don’t think they have the speed and power of the last 2 years. However, I didn’t think the Bulldogs looked that impressive on TV then either. They just went out and won!
Since the games’ at Deer Valley and I’m somewhat loyal to the East Bay, I’ll give DV the edge. (Not by much ,though.)
What does George say?

Spark Baldman

Whoa slow down Schoolmarm. Don’t be throwing out info you don’t really know about. Kravitz was never run out of SRV by whining genius parents or anyone from srvusd. He reigned because he was not supported by the weak SRV admin. He also is known for his offenses at SRV not Cal High.

TJ

Damn yall thought the Kennedy Tennyson game was gonna be close? You guys must think lowly of Tennyson lol

FNL680

Kravitz coached football at Cal exactly one year, the year after he arrived there. In 2010 he was the QB coach/Passing Game Coordinator and Cal went to the Coliseum. Billeci has not included him since.

HSFootball Fan

Since people have asked about it a few times, the NCS website shows that 3 schools petitioned up…

Both Cardinal Newman and Marin Catholic petitioned up to D-III, and Valley Christian-Dublin petitioned up to D-IV

TJ

Head coaches with egos!

Prep Fan

That SRV girls basketball coach had a lot more issues than a few SRV parents. He has since been let go from at least 3 other programs (NG, Concord & Cal) for his abusive ways. Just because a team has some good players and is winning doesn’t mean the coach is doing things right. Character counts too.

The Ghost

Bottom line with Mike Kravitz is he’s a solid football coach and could add a ton of value at Cal High immediately.
Their current head coach has too large of an ego to hand over the grizzly offense to anyone but himself.

Didn’t I read that Cal is averaging 38 points a game this season? I’ve been following Cal for quite some time now and their offense appears to be the same each year Billeci has been there. Not so sure why you think Kravitz was the answer???

Spark Baldman

First of all Its Dave Kravitz and he has not coached since 2010. He is a AP at Cal High. He is a solid coach though and I hope he gets back to it ASAP.

panther4

The Ghost, Mike Kravitz is a realtor in Chicago. I believe you were referring to Dave Kravitz.

where’s all the action for the island bowl tonite? Old Meddling, bleacher coach, Miraman, Lemon 617 and the rest? This is big- 2 evenly matched teams this year. It’s time to get down. Yea, I know actions speak louder than words, but we have to have words and then the actions. Time to gussle.

seven72deuce

If logan beats del oro tonight (I’m predicting a win 35-27) does it mean anything in terms of toughness of schedule?? I mean I know del oro is 0-4 but they’ve played really good teams so far.

Voice of Reason

SRV’s Head Coach is Kessler and he is the one who made the comments that, I’m sure, all EBAL coaches feel the same way about. Kessler just happened to tell the whole world in the heat of the moment.

The Gauchos now have 6 potential D1 athletes on a squad of 29 players; unbelievable. Since Campolindo was able to get to the State Championship Game with no D1 athletes, just think what El Cerrio may be able to accomplish.

First things first, I believe El Cerrito will take care of business and end Salesian’s state leading 26 game winning streak.

Prep Fan

Because no other coaches or bloggers feel that way either, just Kessler and all the other EBAL coaches. Certainly not the BVAL where they had played previously. I’m pretty sure everyone knows what he meant, but for some reason people don’t want to just let those comments go. DLS isn’t even in the EBAL anymore for football anyway.

MiraMan

BigDog,

I like talking a little smack, but for Miramonte this isn’t the kind of year the lends itself to that. I like our team; kids play really hard. But we really don’t have the kind of super athletes that most top teams have. We have Zati Williams, D2 talent, and some seniors that could play D3, maybe. The other kid on our team I really like is Jr. linebacker/O-line Bennet Stehr. He’ll be a monster next year.

Having said that, I like Miramonte against Campo. I honestly think we will be able to run against them some with Bruen. He’s no marquee back, but he’s better than anyone they have…with Hoffman out. I also think we have the better receivers in Williams, Deutz and Paoletti, among others. They have the QB, but Sheehan is no joke.

The other wild card is that I like our defensive backfield. They’re not Campo circa 2011-2012, but the four starters work well together and have 6 picks so far this year while only allowing one long pass (70+ yard TD against Marin Catholic on a busted coverage). And remember only three of the teams (Marin Catholic, Analy and Alameda) actally threw the ball, so basically 6 pick in three games and only allowing one long pass. And two of the three teams are really good. If we get a couple of picks, which I think we can, we’ll win. That’s my prediction. We’ve got to get pressure on the QB and contain the run and that’s where the question mark is for sure!

Voice of Reason,

I get your point that Campo had less-than-El Cerrito talent on their epic team last year, but Stephens is definitely D1 caliber! Piatt is playing for Cal and I believe is dressing for games…I think?? That would to me be 2 D1-level players. Others, perhaps several others, are in that D3 or maybe even D2 range.

Old Former Meddling Coach,

I don’t dislike Encinal, but my gut tells me that Encinal is down and Alameda is up at least relatively speaking. My thought is that Encinal will have a difficult time scoring more that 14 points (two drives primarily featuring running by Sails), but the passing game is for crap! I still think Alameda is a fairly good team. They got beat by a very good Northgate team and Miramonte was on when we played them. Alameda SHOULD be able to do better than 14 points against Encinal. That’s where I get to 28-14 in favor of Alameda.

Stewie

News flash..De La Salle relocates to Texas. Why..coaches don’t complain about unfair advantage and the team that finishes 1st is in 1st not 2nd place….In Texas they man-up and don’t whine like some in the EBAL. Don’t be surprised if Sparty starts to play some Sac area teams.

FNL680

@82, Following the Grizz you know that ’10 is the sole year from 09-12 any sizable OC/DC duties were handed to an AC. Not saying doing both is impossible, however, that’s rare in the EBAL. An experienced, cerebral, calm, collected approach in-game might work, right? In ’10, 8 of 12 opponents were held to 7 points or less. It has been stated by several on this board that Cal’s line on both sides that NCS year was the best in school history, so obviously that was a large factor. If the D steps up from last year, that’d be great and there could be another HUGE game #10, as was in ’10.

Old Former Meddling Coach

MiraMan,BigDog! We won 22-15! Jets win! Jets win! Jet Pride!

monarch86

Fnl680 true dat about 2010 Kraitz is a genius just ask Reihl

baller6

Miraman,

Love your enthusiasm and passion. But it wasn’t gonna happen this year. Campo put on the brakes the entire 4th quarter….it could have gotten really ugly. I think the Mats got the most out of their talent. Stevens was the difference. Next year could be a different story.

old meddling congrats on the jets taking down the hornets! Mira, is el cerrito that good? You saw them against campo right? Coach Nightgale- the Salesian Pride has been smacked- remember when your lame ass coaching staff hosted Don Bosco several years back and stood on their sideline against DLS? Payback time for that 26 game streak- shoulda coulda played better comp during that streak- EC stuck it to ya.

Miramonte played Campo straight up for a half before the Cougars asserted themselves and won the game going away. The Mats were able to run the ball effectively in the first half setting up their passing game. Sheehan throws a nice ball and Miramonte was only down 21-14 at the half.

In what has become a hallmark for Coach Macy and his staff, Campo made the appropriate adjustments and were able to effectively shut down and shut out the Miramonte offense in the second half. CB Luckhurst, giving away nearly 8 inches in height shut down Williams for most of the game. Deutz performed well and was the best player on the team for the Mats tonight.

Stephens took over the game in the 2nd half with both his legs and arm. His 79 yard design draw for a TD gave Campo a 28-14 lead enroute to a 35-14 final that could have been a larger margin of victory if Macy wanted. As for the team with better receivers, Windatt was clearly the best on the field tonight. Add in a slew of talented junior receivers for Campolindo and Stephens has quite a bit to choose from.

Regarding last year’s top players for Campo, both Fadelli and Piatt are walkons at Cal and are redshirting this season; same goes for Ross Anderson of Miramonte, if I am not mistaken.

Prep Fan

Re 97- technically, Sweeney wasn’t the head coach in 2009 when Cal beat Foothill 45-14, as Mannion was the official coach that year, but Sweeney was on the sidelines helping out with the carnage and was clearly involved in the decision making. So Billeci is 4-0 vs Foothill, but 3-0 vs Sweeney.

He’s also 3-1 vs AV including the last 3, 3-0 vs Livermore, 2-1 vs MV including the last 2, 3-1 vs SRV, 2-1 vs Granada. Plus although DLS is no longer part of the EBAL, he put a scare into them 2 years ago in the onside kick game and held them to just 24 points last year. Not a bad résumé for being just 2 games into his 4th season.

Also, Bill & Matt Hoefs have done a bang up job with the JV & Frosh teams over that time finishing 1st or 2nd in the EBAL each year. They have the kids ready to go once they reach varsity and although Cal seems to fly under the radar every year, they have a lot of depth and solid players at every position that are used to winning.

monarch86

Go cal, that wasnt my point anybody that sawbthat qb prior to hi s work with Kravitzz knows whats up go grizz gata!